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NORDIC VOICES THINK TANK REPORT: THE STATE OF SCREENWRITING

The State of Screenwriting: Findings and Recommendations A report from the Nordic Voices Think Tank · Arctic Script Lab · RIFF Industry Days 2026 Session: Wednesday 30 September 2026, 13:30–15:00, The Nordic House, Reykjavík Hosts: Pipaluk K. Jørgensen, Dagur Kári, Amalie Lynge Lyngesen Convened by: Reykjavík International Film Festival (RIFF)

Executive summary This report distils a closed-door working session in which the participants of Arctic Script Lab met with three leading Icelandic screenwriters, Davíð Már Stefánsson, Katla Sólnes and Aldís Amah Hamilton, and with a producer guest, to ask a plain question: what does it take to build a life as a screenwriter in the Nordic and Arctic region today, and what needs to change? The room contained writers at very different stages, from first-time screenwriters to writers with long credits in Nordic, UK, German and US television, and working in Icelandic, Greenlandic, Faroese, Danish, Norwegian, German, English and other contexts. The same conditions came up again and again, whichever career stage or country the speaker came from:

Writing is the least funded stage of the pipeline. 1. Script development money is scarce, short in duration and rarely covers the writer's time or a script editor. writing career is cross-subsidised by other work. 2. AWriters pay for their own projects through hired-gun television work, other professions, savings, and sometimes even the sale of property. is being traded for upfront money. 3. Authorship Streamer buyouts offer immediate payment but no back end, and the region lacks the collective bargaining structures that protect writers elsewhere. Financing rules shape stories. 4. Co-production and incentive criteria push writers to alter characters, locations and casting, and small-language and small-population territories feel this most. Producers and writers meet too late on money. 5. Co-Budget realities arrive after the script is locked, leaving little time for creative solutions. community and access are the real currency. 6. Attention, Labs matter because someone reads the work seriously, and because they open doors that cold outreach does not.

The recommendations below are addressed to funders, producers and commissioners, labs and festivals, and writers' organisations. They are offered as a starting point for dialogue.

About the Nordic Voices Think Tank The Nordic Voices Think Tank is a closed-door working format within RIFF Industry Days. It brings practitioners together to describe the conditions they work in, and then turns that conversation into findings and recommendations for industry and funding bodies. Its founding principle is that conversation should become something that can travel beyond the room.

The format has three defining features: • A working space, not a panel Sessions are participatory and built around the experience of the people doing the work, with no lecture or stage.

• Closed-door. Speaking off the record allows candour about money, contracts and relationships with producers and funders.

• A tangible output. Each session feeds a set of findings and recommendations that are shared with those who can act on them.

The 3rd edition, The State of Screenwriting, asked what it means to build a life as a screenwriter in the Nordic and Arctic region today, and what needs to change. It looked at authorship and creative ownership, development processes, relationships with producers and funders, career sustainability, and the pressures that shape which stories reach the screen.

RIFF’s Position and Intention RIFF convenes the Think Tank as a festival with an industry programme that connects Icelandic, Nordic, Arctic and international professionals. RIFF Industry Days brings these communities together through its WIP Showcase and Co-Production Forum, Arctic Script Lab, panels and masterclasses.

RIFF's position rests on three convictions: • Writing is where a film culture begins

• Festivals can convene a cross borders

• Findings belong to the community that produced them.

Script development is the stage at which small markets decide which of their stories can be told, and it is the stage participants describe as least supported.

A festival can gather writers, producers and funders from several territories in one room, which individual institutions rarely do.

RIFF‘s role is to host the conversation, record it faithfully and carry it to decision-makers. It does not speak in place of the writers.

About Arctic Script Lab Arctic Script Lab is a script development programme for emerging screenwriters and writer-directors creating narratives grounded in Arctic and Nordic experience: environmental, social, cultural and political. Its pilot edition brought together 10 screenwriters working on 8 Nordic projects, each a first or second feature-length fiction or documentary film. The Lab develops projects at treatment level, deepens their thematic focus and connects participants with industry representatives during RIFF Industry Days. It was developed in partnership with the Nuuk International Film Festival and

co-funded by the Nordic Culture Fund. In the online phase, participants read one another's treatments, prepared notes and discussed each project with the mentor, then reworked their material before meeting in Reykjavík. In Reykjavík, mornings were workshop sessions and afternoons were spent in the wider Industry Days programme. The Think Tank sits at the centre of the in-person week, giving the Lab's writers a direct conversation with experienced screenwriters.

The Session and Its Participants The Think Tank met on Wednesday 30 September 2026 at The Nordic House. It combined round-table introductions, a hosted conversation with three guest screenwriters, and open discussion that included a producer guest. The session was hosted by Dagur Kári, the lab’s mentor, Pipaluk K. Jørgensen and Amalie Lynge Lyngesen, partners from the Nuuk International Film Festival.

Stefánsson, Katla Sólnes and Aldís Amah Hamilton), the hosts, and a creative producer guest. Biographies of the hosts and guest screenwriters are in the appendix. The Lab participants are working on eight projects. Together the projects involve ten countries and territories and are written in Greenlandic, Icelandic, Faroese, Finnish, Norwegian, German, Danish and English, among others.

The room contained the ten Arctic Script Lab participants, three leading Icelandic screenwriters (Davíð Már

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Aviliaq Akku Kristensen and Mo Tan. Greenland, Poland. Fiction feature, dark comedy.

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Goods.

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Hilke Rönnfeldt. Denmark, Iceland. Fiction feature, psychological thriller.

Sokli (working title)

Elina Talvensaari. Finland. Documentary feature.

A Dog Days (Hundadagar, working title) Andrea Björk Andrésdóttir. Iceland, Denmark. Fiction feature, period dramedy.

Holes to Hell (Hol til Helvitis)

Trygvi Danielsen. Faroe Islands, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Greenland, United States. Fiction feature, crime, dark comedy and horror.

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The Ship That Wasn‘t There (Skibet der ikke var der)

Claus Pilehave. Greenland, Denmark. Documentary feature. Pétur Óskar. Iceland. Fiction feature, satire and dark comedy.

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Electrified.

Laurens Pérol and Joshua Jádi. Norway, Austria, Germany. Fiction feature, thriller and environmental drama.

Pearl of the North (Perla Norðursins)

Pétur Óskar. Iceland. Fiction feature, satire and dark comedy.

How The Findings Were Gathered, and Their Limits The session was a participatory conversation, not a survey. The findings reflect what the ten Arctic Script Lab participants, three guest screenwriters, the hosts and a producer guest said in about ninety minutes. They are qualitative, self-selected and anecdotal. Where figures appear (for example, how long projects sit in development), they are individual accounts, not data. We recommend that the next stage of this work test the

findings against hard numbers from film institutes and writers' associations. The report was compiled from a transcript of the session and organised by theme. Contributions are paraphrased, and no individual is quoted or identified. Contributions are reported here without attribution to individuals, in keeping with the closed-door format of the session.

Findings 1. Script development is the thinnest part of the funding chain Participants described a funding landscape in which writers are expected to deliver polished work before any meaningful money arrives. Several points came up: In small territories, national film institutes operate with very limited budgets and long queues of applicants. One speaker's summary was that a writer might have seven scripts and, with luck, receive funding for one, and that this support might cover roughly a month of work, far less than the time a script actually takes. Script editing is widely seen as essential, yet it is usually not fundable at the script stage. It can be budgeted as a line item once a project reaches project development funding, but by then the script is expected to be already well edited. In practice writers either pay editors themselves, go without, or turn to labs. Writing on spec is the norm. Participants noted that screenwriters can go five to ten years before being paid for a project, and that being paid for a first writers' room was described as unusual. Writers are also routinely asked to read and give notes on others' work for free. Some set boundaries (reading mainly for people they know and whose work ethic they trust, and expecting drafts to be proofread), which says something about how much unpaid labour circulates informally to fill the gap left by formal development support.

2. Careers are cross-subsidised, and projects take years No participant described funding body support alone as a way to pay rent. The picture that emerged was of portfolio careers built from several sources: • Work-for-hire in television, sometimes for a decade or more, to provide for a family, with personal projects squeezed around it. Writers described the tension of being a "hired gun" while trying to birth their own scripts. • Long gestation. Participants described personal projects taking between six and eight years to find their shape, and finished scripts sitting in a drawer for eight to ten years while the writer remained committed to them. • Financial risk carried personally. Examples given included selling a car and an apartment to keep writing, and, on the producing side, colleagues mortgaging their homes to keep films financed. • Alternative outlets. Some writers publish poetry and short fiction, or show work in galleries and museums, because the film pipeline is too slow or too closed. • Collaborative and remote conditions also matter. One writer reported that a long remote writers' room during the pandemic produced a weaker outcome than in-person collaboration, linking working conditions directly to creative quality. The session also heard that conditions have tightened. Speakers pointed to a crisis in cinema attendance across Scandinavia and Iceland that did not rebound after the pandemic, and to the disappearance of ancillary revenue from television and home-entertainment sales, which

had previously let producers take creative risks because modest losses could be recouped elsewhere. Their view was that producers are now more cautious, and that caution flows down to writers.

3. Authorship, rights and the streamer trade-off This was one of the most animated parts of the discussion.

Buyouts versus back end Writers working for global streamers described being paid well upfront in exchange for handing over rights in perpetuity, with no residuals. Several described it as painful, one comparing the contract to giving away custody of a child. By contrast, a writer who had worked on a UK broadcaster's series described continuing to receive residuals through a union collecting society, a lifelong income stream the streamer model does not provide. No collective structure in much of the region Participants noted that Iceland has no writers' union and no organised movement around rights, and that Greenland has none either. Greenlandic participants said they look to Danish structures and try to borrow from them. Even where films have had international theatrical releases, a writer reported never seeing back-end income. A real trade-off, not a simple villain Participants disagreed on how to weigh it. Some said the answer depends on the project: some stories can be handed over for the fee, while others are personal and must be protected. Others pointed out that streamers at least pay, and that the alternative is often no money at all. Commissioning appetite shapes content Several writers felt that global commissioners remain focused on what excites their own audiences, meaning crime, noir and „whodunit“ framings of Nordic and Arctic stories. This can work as a Trojan horse for more personal themes, but participants felt there is little evidence of commissioning offered in good faith for stories that simply celebrate local culture. Control for under-represented voices For Indigenous and Arctic storytellers the question of who tells the story is central. One participant described taking an executive producer credit specifically to secure final say on a large project. Participants also described the value of the Indigenous Cinema Alliance, a network of Indigenous filmmakers that has met for over a decade and is now producing one another‘s work and influencing policy.

4. Financing criteria shape stories, especially for small-language territories

The usual funding path described was: national institute first, then Nordic and European instruments such as the Nordic Film & TV Fund, Eurimages and Creative Europe MEDIA, then co-production partners, sales and presales, with regional and national incentives or rebates layered in. Co-production eligibility is often met through cast, heads of department and minimum spend in the partner country. Rules differ widely by country, and writers cannot be expected to master them, so producers and writers need to talk early. Writers described rewriting characters to fit the nationality of a financing partner, changing a Norwegian character to a Portuguese or Spanish one, for example, and the experience was described as "squeezing" someone in to unlock a grant. Participants accepted this as sometimes necessary, and noted it can occasionally work within the story. They also noted it can be a creative loss. Non-language work such as music or visual effects can be placed in a partner country, which one writer said unlocked support for both seasons of a series. Small-language contexts are especially exposed. A Faroese participant observed that few Faroese-language features exist and that many films made in Faroese are made by outsiders, so they do not always feel like Faroese films. An Icelandic-language story cannot easily absorb foreign cash without a rewrite.

5. Producers and writers need to talk about money earlier

The session returned several times to the gap between writing and budgeting. • A writer who recently wrote a first feature described being left to write for a long time and then seeing producers start serious costing late, leaving almost no time for creative changes, with heavy cutting in the final stretch. Others described rewriting scenes the day before shooting, or being hired as a budget rewriter on projects already close to production. • Participants noted this is not in the producer's interest either, since early costing leaves time to solve problems in a creative setting. • Views on constraint were nuanced and mostly positive. Several writers said they work better inside a box, that thinking about production is a form of creativity, and that it is healthy to dream without limits early and then bring production reality in at an agreed point. • Practical techniques were shared: researching accessible real locations and securing letters of intent with owners before writing scenes there, and writing in an expensive element on purpose so there is something to give up in negotiation. • A producer's perspective in the room was that writers who make a film "feasible budget-wise" and can show a clear logline, synopsis and look are far easier to take forward.

6. Labs, attention and access • Participants agreed that the most valuable thing a writer can receive is attention: people who actually read the script with care. One lab alumna said her script would not be what it is without that process, while stressing that this applies to any lab that delivers genuine readers and engagement. • Labs also deliver confidence, particularly for first-time writers, and a trusted network. Participants described the lab room as a safe place from which to approach producers, and valued having a trusted person vouch for a project. • Regional exchange has a practical effect: Arctic and Nordic writers discover locations, collaborators, producers and craft (music, for instance) across borders, and one participant highlighted the circumpolar network as a place to build future co-production. • Writers expressed an appetite for a more durable circumpolar writers' network that could do more than a single lab cycle, including exploring something closer to a union or collective voice. • Emerging writers described the step from script to producer as the hardest, with less confidence about knowing when work is ready, how to approach producers, and how to cope with rejection. Experienced guests offered advice (prepare a short dossier of five to ten pages, be ready to answer why this story and why now, expect most cold emails to go unanswered, and treat a no as information about fit, not worth), and a producer noted that many producers find cold emails daunting, which argues for warm introductions through labs and festivals. • Not everyone identifies as a writer. Several documentary filmmakers and writer-directors in the room said they write their own films but did not think of themselves as screenwriters, which has implications for who is counted, supported and represented in any writer-focused policy.

Recommendations The recommendations follow directly from the findings above. Several go beyond what was explicitly proposed in the room and are marked as proposals for discussion. For film institutes and public funders writer time, not only project costs. 1. Fund Create or expand script-stage support that is sized to the real time a script takes and that pays the writer a fee, rather than relying on spec work. Participants‘ account of support covering roughly a month of work suggests a clear gap to close. script editing an eligible cost at the earliest funding stage. 2. Make Recognise script editors, dramaturgs and readers as legitimate script-stage costs, so that editing is not a condition of entry but part of what funding pays for. the pressure to rewrite for eligibility. 3. Reduce Review co-production and rebate criteria for their effect on small-language stories. Where possible, give weight to the language and cultural origin of the story, and allow non-cast and post-production routes to qualify. funding rules across the region. 4. Align Treaties and fund criteria should be easier for writers and small producers to navigate, for example through a plain-language guide to each Nordic and Arctic territory‘s requirements. support on fair terms (proposal). 5. Condition Funders could consider asking that publicly supported projects keep the writer‘s credits and a reasonable share of back-end revenue, so that public money helps build writers‘ long-term income. the data. 6. Gather Commission or support research on writer income, time to production, development success rates and rights terms across the region, so the next conversation can rest on figures.

For producers, production companies and commissioners Cost early and share it. 7. Agree a point in development when a first budget is calculated and shared with the writer, so that cuts and relocations are creative decisions made with time, not emergency decisions in the final weeks. clear about what writers are being paid for. 8. Be Where development work is unpaid or paid at a reduced rate, set the terms in a short contract so that writers keep their rights if a project does not proceed. streamers‘ money on fairer terms (proposal). 9. Offer R Commissioners should consider modest back-end or residual mechanisms alongside upfront fees, and should avoid perpetual, universe-wide rights grabs for work that is not being fully developed. local stories on their own terms. 10.Commission Participants perceived a narrow appetite for genre framings of the region. Commissioners that want regional voices could back stories without requiring a crime or whodunit wrapper, and could support Indigenous and Arctic creators in holding creative and executive control. warm introductions. 11. Make Producers who sit on lab panels and festival juries can help by taking on a small number of lab projects each year and by inviting follow-up from writers they met in the room.

For labs, festivals and industry events guaranteeing real readers. 12.Keep The value of labs lies in serious readers and attention. Keep mentor-to-writer ratios at a level where each script is actually read and discussed. the business side of writing. 13.Teach Build short sessions on budgeting basics, co-production criteria, rights and contracts, and how to approach producers (including how to write a dossier and a short pitch). writers to producers on purpose. 14.Connect Add structured producer meetings and a matching exercise (which producers suit which project) to lab programmes, to reduce the reliance on cold outreach. a lasting circumpolar writers‘ network. 15.Build Person where possible, and consider a shared directory of writers and projects across the Nordic and Arctic region. non-traditional writers. 16.Include Welcome documentary makers, writer-directors, Indigenous storytellers and writers from small-language territories explicitly, and use language that does not exclude people who do not call themselves screenwriters.

For writers' organisations and the writing community collective representation. 17. Explore In territories with no writers‘ union or collecting society, begin with a regional or circumpolar writers‘ association, learning from established Danish and UK models on rights, residuals and standard terms. Appendix: hosts and guest screenwriters standard terms and rates. 18.Share Publish template contracts, indicative fees and a short guide to rights, so that writers negotiating alone start from common ground. peer practice. 19.Support Encourage norms for unpaid feedback (reciprocity, boundaries and preparation) and mentoring that recognises the time senior writers give.

Appendix: hosts and guest screenwriters Pipaluk Kreutzmann Jørgensen (host). Award-winning Greenlandic Inuk director, writer and producer. Her feature debut Anori was the first Greenlandic feature by a female director. She co-directed the Oscar-nominated short Ivalu and founded the Nuuk International Film Festival. Dagur Kári (host and Lab mentor). AIcelandic director and screenwriter who studied at the National Film School of Denmark. His features include Nói Albínói, Dark Horse, The Good Heart and Virgin Mountain. From 2013 to 2017 he headed the director‘s programme at the Danish film school. Amalie Lynge Lyngesen (host). A cultural producer and Festival Manager at Nuuk International Film Festival. She also works on film projects with the Greenlandic production company Polarama. Her experience spans documentary production and research, as well as visual arts and communication, including work with Hansen & Pedersen and the performing arts platform HAUT. Davíð Már Stefánsson (guest screenwriter). Icelandic screenwriter and former journalist with an MFA in Film from Columbia University. His television credits include Katla and Trapped (Netflix), Gangs of London (Sky/AMC) and King & Conqueror (BBC/CBS). His horror feature Auteur is in development with Wild Atlantic Pictures. Katla Sólnes (guest screenwriter). Icelandic writer-director and 2026 Nicholl Fellow of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with a Master‘s in Screenwriting from Columbia University. She was a Sundance Screenwriters Lab fellow in 2025 and a Hamptons Screenwriters Lab fellow in 2026 with her feature Eruption, produced by Anton Máni Svansson of STILL VIVID. Aldís Amah Hamilton (guest screenwriter). Icelandic-American scriptwriter and actress working across theatre, film, television and games. She is a creator, writer and lead actor of Black Sands I and II and advised on the script of the BAFTA-winning game Hellblade II. She is developing a new project under the guidance of Glassriver, with support from the Icelandic Film Centre.

Appendix: Arctic Script Lab participants Short biographies, drawn from RIFF's project information sheets and listed in project order. Akku Kristensen (Aviliaq). Greenlandic writer whose work draws on years in construction, harbour cargo and hospital work, and on the friction between Inuit identity and Danish influence. Aviliaq is his first screenplay, written after he moved to Poland. Mo Tan ( Aviliaq). Born in China and based in Warsaw, she graduated in directing from the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź in 2018. Her documentary and narrative work examines cultural clashes and human dilemmas. Her documentary Confessions of a Mole premiered in competition at IDFA 2025 and won the Best Debut Award at Millennium Docs Against Gravity 2026. Andrea Björk Andrésdóttir (Dog Days). Icelandic-born, Berlin-based director, visual artist and comedian with a background in illustration and animation. She has been active in Berlin‘s English-speaking comedy scene since 2018 and was assistant director and animation director on a comedy series about the Icelandic Sagas, produced by RVK Studios for RÚV. Her short Voice Message premiered at LA Femme International Film Festival, Budapest. Laurens Pérol (Electrified). Based in Norway and Austria, he studied Moving Images at Filmkunstskolen i Kabelvåg and is completing an MA in Directing at the Vienna Film Academy. His feature debut Å ØVE (Practice) premiered at the Norwegian Film Festival in 2023 and has screened at more than 30 festivals. He was a resident at the Ingmar Bergman Foundation on Fårö in 2026. Joshua Jádi (Electrified). Writer and director, alumnus of Berlinale Talents, Torino ScriptLab, Sarajevo Talents, RIFF Talent Lab and Locarno Academy Summer School, and a member of the European Film Academy since 2025. His feature debut as a writer, Who Is Afraid of God, is directed by Rosa Friedrich and shoots in autumn 2026. Hilke Rönnfeldt (Goods). Screenwriter and director working across Iceland, Denmark and Northern Germany, and a former ship‘s officer. Her short A Study of Empathy won the Golden Leopard at Locarno, and her mini-series Unanchored won the Grimme Award for TV fiction. She is an alumna of Torino Script Lab, Berlinale Talents and Future Frames, and advises Stockfish Film Festival and the distribution agency NORRA. Trygvi Danielsen (Holes to Hell). Faroese writer, director and producer of short films, music videos and music films, and musician and author. His feature debut 111 góðir dagar (111 Good Days, 2021) premiered at Stockfish Film Festival in Reykjavík and had a theatrical run at Bíó Paradís. He holds a master‘s in creative writing and literature from the University of the Faroe Islands. Pétur Óskar (Pearl of the North). Icelandic actor, musician and screenwriter, born in Luxembourg and trained at Cours Florent in Paris and at the Schaubühne Berlin. His screen credits include And Breathe Normally, Trapped and the upcoming 200 Kópavogur, and he has twice been nominated for the Icelandic Music Awards as Oscar Leone. Pearl of the North is his first feature screenplay. Elina Talvensaari (Sokli). Finnish documentary director known for intimate, visually precise films about memory and place. Her debut feature Lady Time premiered at IDFA and won the Jussi Award for Best Documentary; her short How to Please won a second Jussi, and How to Pick Berries premiered at Venice. Claus Pilehave ((The Ship That Wasn‘t There). Copenhagen-based journalist who has written and directed several TV documentaries, including Greenland‘s White Gold, made with Greenlandic director Otto Rosing. He is making The Ship That Wasn‘t There with Greenlandic director Inuk Jørgensen and completed a screenwriting summer course at the European Film College in 2022.